The Ontario government announced yesterday that it plans to invest $75 million to bring passenger rail service back to Northeastern Ontario, including service through Muskoka.
Ontario Northland passenger service was cancelled in 2012.
The province released an updated initial business case that outlines options for passenger rail service from Toronto to Timmins. Future feasibility work on a preferred route will include a new rail connection to Cochrane, which will provide a connection to Polar Bear Express service to Moosonee.
The planned return to service won’t happen until some time in the middle of this decade, and will be based on seasonal travel demands. Seven-day-a-week service is proposed for the peak season of July to December, dropping to four days per week from January to June.
According to the business plan, southbound service would travel through Muskoka in between 7:50 and 8:40 a.m. and arrive at Union Station at about 11 a.m., while northbound service would leave Union station at 6:30 p.m. and pass through Muskoka between 8:35 and 9:45 p.m.
The proposed service would stop at the following locations: Toronto, Langstaff, Gormley, Washago, Gravenhurst, Bracebridge, Huntsville, South River, North Bay, Temagami, Temiskaming Shores (New Liskeard), Englehart, Kirkland Lake, Matheson, and Timmins or Cochrane.
Related: Promises, promises, promises | Letters
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“plans to invest”
It would be helpful to see a few lines reported here about accounting and how the current “investment in return to rail service” is going. There have already been promises and there has been money spent without any rolling stock so far. Does this new “promise” add to what is currently in the works or is it in a lump?
“planned return to service won’t happen until some time in the middle of this decade, and will be based on seasonal travel demands”
Why seasonal? It does not get to the heart of the problem: moving people to their destination (and back) in a more efficient, affordable, less polluting way. And, seriously, if you get to a town by train — then how to get around and out to the attractions?
“According to the business plan, southbound service would travel through Muskoka in between 7:50 and 8:40 a.m. and arrive at Union Station at about 11 a.m., while northbound service would leave Union station at 6:30 p.m. and pass through Muskoka between 8:35 and 9:45 p.m.”
That’s not too bad — if it was daily, year-round.
Regardless of election timeframe or party at the helm, the issue of how to get to our destination (and back) is going to get bigger. It will require big answers. Having a daily, year-round train service will be part of that answer. Little nips at the edges, and certainly piling on promises, won’t do it.
“Rail passenger service to the North” sounds great… It would sound much better if it were “Affordable Rail passenger service to the North”. Fares have to be affordable for people to make a change from automobile to rail travel. Yes, the cost of gasoline is going up, and, yes, there is the overall cost of operating an automobile to consider, rather than just the cost of fuel. However, in the short term, the dollar cost of transporting a family from North Bay to Toronto has to be competitive to persuade people to switch to rail.
Sometimes it’s hard to know under which ‘Doppler’ headline a comment should go, but maybe here is about right.
A rail service that operated for so long, was cancelled, is about to be put back. The middle of the decade. Maybe! But if an election goes badly, then what? Can we trust any of the ‘elected officials’ who steer our lives?
The federal government has the edge when it comes to offering handouts to purchase an election. They control the mint and presently the PM and mini-garch have it running full tilt. Their only concern is will the plates buckle from the heat.
Not to be outdone, our provincial PM is offering this and cutting that to convince enough people to make Xs and get him re-elected.
There is that old saying , something along the line ‘you get what you deserve’, but do we really deserve this?
There is not even the pretense of suggesting that the people and program offered by a party, is good and just and what the country needs. There is only the assertion that the other guys are incompetent and can’t do the job. What job? I think the populace is getting ‘jobbed’ and not in a good way.
Out in the world, you are judged by your performance. Industry and business, even everyday life, has little time for mediocrity.
Today it seems that mediocrity has politics to fall back on.
Unfortunately.